From my email inbox:
Hello friend,
Tomorrow, April 1, spring elections will take place, and the results will have long-standing effects on our community.There will be a very important item on the ballot, a Milwaukee County referendum to weaken the Milwaukee County Board by slashing the income of County Supervisors in half and reducing their compensation and benefits. In so doing, the measure effectively seeks to reduce the Board to part-time status, with negative implications for the work of County Supervisors in overseeing vital County services and addressing our needs as constituents.
I urge you to VOTE NO.
As a staffer with former County Supervisor and current Senate Democratic Leader Chris Larson, I believe deeply in the vital role of the County Board in improving the quality of life in our community, managing vital services, and being responsive to constituents. I therefore speak from experience and concern in urging you to VOTE NO.
The passing of this referendum will have three negative and long term effects on our County:
1) A weakened County Board means weakened oversight of our County Executive. I believe the Board must remain an effective check on the power of our County Executive, a basic and important principle in ensuring good, responsive governance.
2) A weakened County Board reduces our local community’s ability to resist the harmful agenda of Republican Governor Scott Walker and his legislature. This measure harms our capacity to enact reforms that make our community a progressive leader in our state. Without the County Board, the living wage ordinance would have never been enacted.
3) Finally, I find it disturbing that the Republicans are, in effect, seeking to exclude poor and middle class people from public service. By drastically reducing the compensation and benefits of County Supervisors, this measure would ensure that only people of means, of wealth, could afford to make a living as County Supervisors. There is nothing wrong with wealth, but there is something wrong in raising barriers to discourage the poor and middle class from running for public office. This is something we simply should not accept.
Serving as a County Supervisor is a full-time job. They must be responsive and directly accountable to us, their constituents. Milwaukee County Supervisors should have modest but adequate compensation for the considerable governmental and communal responsibilities their work entails.
County Supervisors provide an important check on the power of the County Executive, have the ability to enact meaningful progressive reforms, and serve as a vital link between us, the constituents, and the County services that make our communities livable. The people of this county deserve to have Supervisors who are working for them full time.
Please stand with me tomorrow, April 1, and VOTE NO on this referendum.
Best,
Jonathan Brostoff
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